Posted 6 years ago on Jan. 28, 2012, 5:46 a.m. EST by Middleaged
(5140)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

Brainstorming: What if? Tibet, is an example of Pure (uncorrupted): Political, Individual, and Religious, Freedom, Self-determination, and Dedication, that was destroyed and dismantled because it was wholley free.

What if Tibet was Monopolized just as the US has been (Lobbyist Control the Congress). What if this is just what humans do if you let the few be unregulated and let them corrupt the congress with money.

Maybe it is a human trait for some humans to try to control and monopolize business and consumers.

1) What if governments and political forces will appear every time there is freedom.

2) What if they appear to corrupt freedom.

3) What if they appear every time to corrupt dedication and purity.

4) There was an idea of a free America, but the US natives, and the US Blacks, and the US Mexicans, and immigrant Chinese were deprived of this Liberty, Freedom, of the right to self determination.

5) What if Self determination did not exist if you were yellow skinned, or brown skinned in 1776 ("Declaration of independance") and in 1791 after we signed the "Bill of Rights".

6) What if Big money and Aristocrats from all of Europe always showed up to prevent people from realizing their potential or "Self Determination" in all these countries and laws:

Magna Carta (1215; England)
Golden Bull of 1222 (1222; Hungary)
Statute of Kalisz (1264; Kingdom of Poland) Jewish residents' rights
Dušan's Code (1349; Serbia)
Twelve Articles (1525; Germany)
Pacta conventa (1573; Poland)
Henrician Articles (1573; Poland)
Petition of Right (1628; England)
Bill of Rights 1689 (England) and Claim of Right Act 1689 (Scotland) This applied to all British Colonies of the time, and was later entrenched in the laws of those colonies that became nations - for instance in Australia with the Colonial Laws Validity Act 1865 and reconfirmed by the Statute of Westminster 1931
Virginia Bill of Rights (June 1776)
Preamble to the United States Declaration of Independence (July 1776)
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789; France)
Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution (completed in 1789, ratified in 1791)
Constitution of Greece (1822; Epidaurus)
Hatt-ı Hümayun (1856; Ottoman Empire)
Basic rights and liberties in Finland (1919)[citation needed]
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
Fundamental rights and duties of citizens in People's Republic of China (1949)
European Convention on Human Rights (1950)
Fundamental Rights of Indian citizens (1950)
Implied Bill of Rights (a theory in Canadian constitutional law)
Canadian Bill of Rights (1960)
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982)
Article III of the Constitution of the Philippines (1987)
Article 5 of the Constitution of Brazil (1988)
New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (1990)
Charter of Fundamental Rights and Basic Freedoms of the Czech Republic (1991)
Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance (1991)
Chapter 2 of the Constitution of South Africa (entitled "Bill of Rights") (1996)
Human Rights Act 1998 (United Kingdom)
Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2005)

Here below are your Individual Rights (just for citizens not for states or for corporations), but they don't prevent oligopilies which were later addressed in with the "The Sherman Act of 1890" or the "US AntiTrust Laws".

1) Freedom of Speech, Press, Religion and Petition

2) Right to keep and bear arms

3) Conditions for quarters of soldiers

4) Right of search and seizure regulated

5) Provisons concerning prosecution

6)Right to a speedy trial, witnesses, etc.

7)Right to a trial by jury

8) Excessive bail, cruel punishment

9) Rule of construction of Constitution

10) Rights of the States under Constitution

From Wikipedia:

As Senator John Sherman put it, "If we will not endure a king as a political power we should not endure a king over the production, transportation, and sale of any of the necessaries of life." Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act almost unanimously in 1890, and it remains the core of antitrust policy. The Act makes it illegal to try to restrain trade or to form a monopoly. It gives the Justice Department the mandate to go to federal court for orders to stop illegal behavior or to impose remedies.[20

51 Comments

In the 1950's, Tibet was a feudal theocracy. 5% of the population, including high lamas and nobles, owned the vast majority of the property. The rest of the people were mostly their serfs or slaves, according to Michael Parenti in Friendly Feudalism:

Thank you. I believe much of the propaganda about Tibet in the main stream media is intended to divide and conquer China and Tibet, and also to divide the US from China, which should be our major ally, like it was during WW2.

They mean to weaken any and every potential rival, or potential combination of rivals including China. Everything you read and hear about China, Russia, Iran should be regarded through this lens. Even the Europe bashing fits into this.

By the way, who do you mean when you say "They", as in "They mean to weaken...". For me, it is the global financial oligarchy, which has it's main headquarters in the City of London, and on Wall Street.

I think the Tibetan people would tell you yes. But not just for the conveniences, but also since now they can learn to read and write, which wasn't permitted for 95% of the people in old Tibet. Also, because now they cannot be forced to become monks, as was common in the old days. Do you think you would like it if your society could force you to become a monk?

Yes, well do we count religious items as wealth even when it sits on an altar? I'm not sure religious buildings or apartments for lamas counts as wealth.

Look at it this way maybe the equivalent of KBR went into Tibet to get the resources and had to build roads, telecommunications and internet infrastructure.

We can't kill, rape, pillage, and incarcerate a people because they look different, live in tents in a park outside of Washington DC or Wall Street, .... and we can't kill them because they worship their ancestors at a shrine in their house just as the Japanese or other Asian people do.

All you can do is send a trade delegation, or a diplomatic mission, try to teach them, and hope they adopt some of your "better" ideas.

WHO are you after all to judge?? This culture tells you not to judge others does it not?

Didn't we Judge the Black people to make them slaves? Do you think we should still judge the blacks as less than human. Didn't we call American Natives ignorant savages? You don't still call them that. We stole their land, claimed it for our own, and put them on reservations after we killed off the buffalo that sustained them.

I think most Native Americans today would prefer to live under modern conditions. In the old days, they only lived up to around the age of 35.

If you haven't read Friendly Feudalism, I suggest you do so. Here are some quotes:

-” Religions have had a close relationship not only with violence but with economic exploitation. Indeed, it is often the economic exploitation that necessitates the violence. Such was the case with the Tibetan theocracy.

-”Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they became bonded for life. Tashì-Tsering, a monk, reports that it was common for peasant children to be sexually mistreated in the monasteries.

-”In the Dalai Lama’s Tibet, torture and mutilation—including eye gouging, the pulling out of tongues, hamstringing, and amputation—were favored punishments inflicted upon runaway serfs and thieves.

-”Whatever wrongs and new oppressions introduced by the Chinese in Tibet, after 1959 they did abolish slavery and the serfdom system of unpaid labor, and put an end to floggings, mutilations, and amputations as a form of criminal punishment.

Yes, thanks. I read that last week. I take your point that living on the reservation today would be miserable to many without roads, cars, modern trade goods, Internet, TV, cable (maybe), radios, X-box, etc.

Few of the bibliography listed by the author actually was pre-invasion. I understand that Michael Parenti was quoting another author that had read some of the old primary source material from pre-invasion Tibet.

Primary Source Material is certainly stronger evidence than people that may have been influenced by the Chinese Party Line or who intend to go back to visit with visa's from China. I remember in the 1980's how hard it was to get a visa to China - and that the Chinese employ people to guide you and follow you around. You could not criticize China as a professor if you wanted to go back for further career enhancing research or visits.

Chinese control of the Narrative and Propaganda is at a whole other level that what we are used to here in the USA.

Are you from China BTW? I'm Caucasian, but have always loved Asian culture.

No, I'm Caucasian too, but I lived for a year in China teaching English, and am thinking of going back. I can't say that I saw much suppression of free speech while I was there.

Some of my students were quite outspoken in their criticism of the establishment. One day, a student stood up and gave a long speech about how he considered Mao to be a devil. The other students just looked on as if to say "So what?"

Thanks good experience. I have looked into trying to teach ESL in Asia, but haven't taken a course yet. I heard that Japan could be multiple train rides to different schools every day. I think I heard that Taiwan was low salary. I knew a counselor in Michigan that loved teaching Vietnamese students (he said they were the best). I've met some teachers that worked in South Korea, and Saigon. I think you can have bad bosses and better bosses.

I read a book long ago that revealed a picture of culture shock of teaching in China. Iron and Silk. Maybe you can relate to those experiences. He might have been teaching adults though and long ago.

There are lots of opportunities to teach in Asia. Korea used to have the best paying jobs, though the economic crisis is hitting hard there now. I've heard Thais are the best students, but maybe Vietnamese as well.

You can definitely have bad bosses/situations. Speaking for China, the level of organization is not so high there as in the west, so there can be a lot of frustrations with that, but also opportunities if you take them.

For example, the lessons were pretty bad at the school where I taught, and it was only towards the end of my contract, that I realized that I could have helped them to implement a complete new and improved series of lessons.

But even when you try to help them, they can resist sometimes, just out of pettiness.

I tried to do a good job, and had no problem getting paid, although my co-worker slaked off a lot, and had to fight for his bonus towards the end of his contract.

The Author is James W. Loewen. Quote below is from website for after market cliff notes. The point is we don't know our own history. So, how can we control our future. The Age of Exploration arising in the years after 1492, led to domination with better weapons.

Chapter 2, Summary and Analysis

"1493: The True Importance of Christopher Columbus", disputes the canonization of America's first great hero. All twelve textbooks fill many pages about the watershed year 1492, with erroneous or unverifiable material. They overlook many pre-Columbian visitors and fail to analyze the 15th-century cultural changes that make Europeans respond to Columbus' "discovery". The Renaissance and Crusades are rightly mentioned but not put in context; while wrongly, Columbus and his sponsors are portrayed as humanists. Europe's population is shown as expanding and in need of increased trade and the Turks block the spice routes - maintaining the false archetype of a vaguely threatening Islam.

The Age of Exploration is second only to the agricultural revolution in its importance to humanity, because it opens 500 years of European domination. The textbooks, however, are vague on why it happens. They omit how it is facilitated by advances in military technology and bureaucracy, double-entry bookkeeping,...

Self-determination is the principle in international law that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference. The principle does not state how the decision is to be made, or what the outcome should be, whether it be independence, federation, protection, some form of autonomy or even full assimilation.[1] Neither does it state what the delimitation between nations should be — or even what constitutes a nation. In fact, there are conflicting definitions and legal criteria for determining which groups may legitimately claim the right to self-determination.[2] Moreover, self-determination is just one of many principles applied to determining international borders.[3]

By extension the term self-determination has come to mean the free choice of one's own acts without external compulsion.[4][5]

The USA is just another resource to be plundered as we are conquered economically and dominated politically. If we don't respect Iraqi sovereignty, then look a little further, people. The TRUTH is that our education and political knowledge has been controlled by politicians that don't want to stir the pot. But then they are all gone. Under the new Era, the press is all controlled, investigative reporters are mostly laid off or let go. We just get the corporate bullet points from the news (and they all read the same or sound the same since it is just a guy called "A Repeater").

1) The USA has corporate and government "Repeater" that go around the office and repeat the political truth as defined by our "Think Tanks".

2) We are Tibet, because we sanction the war in Iraq for over 20 years starting in 1991 (bombing to kill based on a supposed UN resolution).

3) We are Tibet since we are no longer taught the philosophy of the US Constitution, where it came from, why it is important, what is sovereignty, what is freedom, what are individual rights.

4) We are Tibet because no one tells us that we are allowed to wear mohawks, allowed to be punks, allowed to be different, allowed to question Authority, Allowed to Question Authority, Allowed to Question the basis for law or know if it is Common Law, English law, Tort Law, UN Law (the law that allowed bombing and attack on LIBYA, or some Global Law that we haven't heard yet.

5) We are Tibet, because they didn't' have any control over the massive government force that invaded their country, REWROTE the HISTORY after 1959, and didn't say they had the right of first strike as Georgie Bush said, they said we have the right to invade and rape them because they are "BACKWARD".

SO Apparently you don't have to do anything threatening to China or to the USA to be Attacked, Raped, your Economy Destroyed, millions of people dispersed as Refugees to other countries.

Wake Up, We Don't Have the Right to change human history (by Rape, Invasion, and Plunder of Sovereign Nations) and we can't pretend to implement a new government rule by assassinating the ruler or democratically elected president.

We are Tibet, because we live under monopolies that run over us in Washington politics and in US Legislation like in Health Care, banking, Finance, War, Prisons, ETC.

No nation has the right to invade another nation or interfere with their sovereignty. China certainly must have enslaved people to build the Great Wall. But notice there are 293 different languages in China not just one. China accomplished a major feat in spreading it's language and culture under the various dynasties. Amazing. Even South Korea still uses parts of an old Chinese language for numbering. Hey, maybe Korea is really part of China?? Japan, Korea, and China have long standing land disputes...Maybe they all belong to China??

But if I have a land or city over the mountains and we all speak a different language, and we all have a different culture...What gives the USA or China the right to come over and tell me who is going to lead my church, or that I belong to their country (especially when we haven't seen dime one of money from your capitol in Washington DC or Beijing??

The answer is war is WRONG. We have to support rules that compel us to let sovereign nations decide their future. We have to prevent leaders from invoking patriotism and nationalism just so that they and their cronies can have a legacy.

China has a different logic on the use of force on people. So how do we find common ground now that their forces have been in Haiti for peace keeping. Maybe we will see more of Chinese Soldiers in the future in the Americas.

So how will we dialog with the Chinese and our US Government about sovereignty??

[-]1 points
by ZenDogTroll
(13032)
from South Burlington, VT
6 years ago

The plight of the Tibetan people has no parallel in American history. Their suffering has little to do with issues surrounding international conglomeration or the current global movement for corporate hegemony.

It has everything to do with Tibetan/Chinese culture and history, and the geopolitics at the end of WWII.

They suffer an unjust occupation by the Chinese government, have suffered cultural decimation, enforced demographic restructuring and waves of Han Chinese immigration, brutal repression, imprisonment, torture, and death, as they struggle for freedom.

Old Tibet was a feudal theocracy. The high lamas were tyrants frequently owning thousands of serfs and slaves. Tibetan Buddhism was an ideology developed to support this system by convincing the public that their lowly state was a result of their misbehavior in previous life times.

It was good of the Chinese to put an end to this. Today, Tibet is one of the fastest developing regions in the world. Old Tibet had no electricity, running water or paved roads. In the 1950s it resembled medieval Europe.

Many Tibetans today appreciate the progress their land has made since the intervention of the Chinese.

Wow, I never heard this before. It probably shows I have big holes in my Asian History. I'll have to surf the web and see what is out there.

I have grown to respect the old developed cultures of Asia like Korea, Japan, and China. And it took time for me to reflect on what people had said to me. I would guess that a lot of people in the West will never respect or have more than a slight understanding of China.

I don't think the words of Chinese Government in the press has ever helped at all. But Chinese culture is different, language is different, philosophy is different, and their history has shaped them.

There always were two sides to the Tibet question. I never considered that there was an upper class in Tibet that being homeless would want to go back. I have to research this hard. younger generations would be greatful for the internet and technology (I would think).

It is pretty devastating stuff reading through it and am glad to see the notes. However few notes seem to be from prior to the invasion.

The picture painted looks more like Afghanistan, and maybe much of China was or is this way. We are looking back through a lens of a culture that went through a history of Western revolutions, new forms of government, civil right protests, inventions, common law, the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, etc.

Tibet doesn't sound that different from China in many ways, but I've never heard about sex abuse in remote areas of China (And I wouldn't would I?)

Reading the article, the words that come up are "that is just the way it was". I found myself distancing my feelings from what is being described. I don't think I would stand up today, proclaim myself a humanist, and declare we must bring democracy to Tibet.

It could be I am still soaking in the descriptions of Tibet. I think my view has changed a little as a result of this discussion. I am trying to analyze it a little below.

Was Tibet a subsistance economy? It was I think. Therefore a lot of Michael Parenti's article seems out of context when he talked about riches or an upper class, except for saying Tibet had serfs.

I still have doubts about the conclusions of some of the writers. Tibet doesn't seem to be a rich land with enough for everyone to share. The government they formed in Tibet sounds very unique and value can be found in studying it. Same for the religion of course. I can't see how serfs or slaves could pay any taxes in the context of poverty so that didn't make sense to me. I can allow for boys to be compelled into service of the monestary. I can see how people like serfs or monks translate into a kind of resource, but the property holdings and religious items are not the kind of thing that are liquid. Did Tibet have currency or coinage?? I can't imagine there was gold or even much of an economy. I beleive it as a subsistance economy where a single animal has great value. I also can't see a poor person stealing 2 cows. That sounds like a lie to me becasue of the very high value. The slavery part is also difficult for me. I don't know what value slaves can have in an isolated kingdom without a middle class to buy goods. Also the fact that Tibet was isolated, had it's own language, had it's own culture, and wasn't influenced by China kind of refutes China's claim on ownership.

The Chinese line on this is severe ( http://factandtruth.wordpress.com/human-rights-of-tibet/ ) but I cannot be confident in what they have to say until they make much more progress toward freedom of speech. It might be that some of what they say is true; but it might also be that they are presenting (admittedly bizarre) funerary rites as human sacrifices, prisoners as slaves, etc. (for a bizarre example, on the site I linked above they make a bizarre claim that a woman aged prematurely as a result of the Tibetan regime) Given how little I know about the region's history I certainly can't make a judgment about it, but I think I'll resist attempts to make me think of them as demons or angels.

We know that under Mao the Tibetans suffered severely, and that they still protest for religious autonomy and against efforts to colonize their region with people from other parts of China suggests that they still are not altogether happy with their benevolent rulers. Considering that some of their protests have looked a lot like run-of-the-mill race riots, or the cordial meeting of the Dalai Lama with Shoto Asahara before the latter became famous (but after he wrote his D&D Manual of the Planes inspired account of his voyages beyond the Pure Light of the Void), I am skeptical that the Tibetans widely hold some deep religious insight denied to the rest of us.

I think the proper way to proceed in such a situation is to focus narrowly on human rights for all people in the here and now, rather than trying to unravel the good and bad of nations in previous centuries. It is unrealistic to think that after all this time Tibet is just going to declare independence and become some kind of Shangri-La. It would be like the Chinese saying that about Hawai'i. It is realistic for the U.S. to retire its tired Cold War rhetoric, stop poking at the Chinese solely with the intent to disrupt their state and instead try gently to prod it into accepting standards of free speech which we know are good for any country that would adopt them, including our own. Someday China is either going to accept free speech, or collapse into chaos - their choice.

From what I can see, the Tibetans have complete freedom to practice their religion, but they also have the freedom to not practice their religion if they so choose. I think these monks who protest simply want a return to the old days when they could impose their theocratic rule on others.

The Tibetans do not have "complete freedom to practice their religion" when the Chinese government demands the power to tell them who their church leaders will be, and when the current Panchen Lama was disappeared shortly after his selection. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchen_Lama , etc. Obviously China made huge advances toward human rights since the Maoist era, which have made their current relative prosperity possible, but they still have a long way to go, and their progress recently has been minimal at best.

As Americans realized in the 1950s, economic progress is not enough. The notion that you can avoid uprisings by suppressing or controlling organizations is a fallacy. Let's be clear: the U.S. has come all the way up out of one of the vilest racial tyrannies of history, and achieved substantial racial equality and integration all the way up to the presidency. Though all these things were tried, we did not end race riots by censorship, nor by jailing or shooting black activists, nor by infiltrating activist organizations and trying to control them, nor by giving the drug trade free rein in minority neighborhoods. We made the progress by integrating schools, by funding schools in poor areas, by offering extra help in education, by protecting people from discrimination in employment and throughout daily commerce, and above all, by respecting people of minority descent and not trying to crush their aspirations for freedom. In other words, by routine, day-by-day protection of the rights (both "positive" and "negative") of all Americans.

I do believe Tibetans today have greater freedom than they ever have. In the past they were tied to monasteries or the estates of nobles, they couldn't leave for all of their lives without their master's permission. Otherwise, escaping serfs in Tibet were tortured quite horribly.

Now, young Tibetans can be found far off getting degrees at top universities in Shanghai or Beijing, and becoming managers, teachers, and all kinds of professsionals.

Having your country occupied by a foreign government is cultural and economic rape. Ask the native Americans, south Vietnamese, Iraqi's, and Afghani's. Oppression by your own government is like forced incest. Both are wrong. Any increase in wealth does not justify it.

The office of the Dalai Lama was originally established by the Mongolians, a brutal empire that pillaged most of the world. The Dalai Lama was to be their puppet dictator in Tibet, so you could say that he represented the foreign occupation.

The Dalai Lama was responsible for taking the wealth of Tibet, through enslavement of the Tibetan people, keeping his portion, and delivering the rest to his Mongolian overlords.

The Tibetan people are now much better off that the oppression of the Lama regime has been terminated.

The Tibetans were living under a terrible system of tyranny during the reign of incarnate lamas. It was the same as living in medieval Europe, but during the 1950s. If not a right, the Chinese believed that they had a responsibility to change it.

What if Mexico was living under a tyrannical dictatorship, with medieval conditions? If not a right, wouldn't we have a responsibility to go in there and make things better?

If you were to go to Tibet, I'm sure you would find most Tibetans live happy lives. Its only certain monks, who want the power back in their hands, who protest.

I wouldn't want to live in Tibet, its too high up, hard to breath. Most Chinese people don't even want to live there.

I think you are dodging my answers. If you really want to know what life is like in China or Tibe, contact the people there. If you don't want to know, and just want to keep believing propaganda, then go ahead and do that.

I would be happy to live in China again, I've been thinking about going back. Many foreigners who go to China first imagine it to be some grey Orwellian world, and find out that it is nothing like that.

Life in a big city in China is not too different from life in the US. The main difference is that it is Chinese, not that it is Communist.

Go see for yourself sometime, there are many tours that will take you to Tibet and many other parts of China in one package.

No, my wages were better, I made the same as an upper middle class Chinese person, while teaching English. But many of my students, with average incomes, seemed to be quite happy with their lives, and supportive of their government. I did not meet one Chinese person who hated the Chinese government.